Never mind that the US increased employment by 252,000 in December and unemployment sagged to 5.6%.  The stock market moves to its own beat and doesn't care much about the particulars in the ‘jobs' report or the media's interpretations of its details.

US Stocks Decline as Wage Data Overshadows Job Gains

The market only cares about how those particulars affect the money creation that has kept it in operation since 2009.  Here are two graphs from NFTRH 324…

On the Monetary Base view, Post-QE Base dropped, the S&P 500 popped (Santa seasonals)… then dropped… then the Base popped after the S&P 500 dropped and then the S&P 500 popped, then it dropped (to fill the gaps) and popped again; but today it dropped.

The Fed Funds view (ZIRP is into its 6th year now) simply shows box 1 (black) and box 2 (red).  Box 1 wants to see box 2 remain very thin and horizontally rectangular while it continues to grow very tall in a vertically rectangular sort of way.

Economics 101, Wonderland style.

The worry in the ‘Jobs' details was supposedly in wage stagnation. The mainstream thinking being that wage growth would spur organic economic expansion as all those consumers get out there and gobble up the economy's products.

But it can be argued (by the second chart above that it is the lack of wage growth that can cause fretting by policy makers and an avoidance of any moves that would threaten box 2.  Put another way, if wages start growing and the things that mainstream economists call inflation start to get out of hand the pressure would mount – amidst the strong economic backdrop – to get on that rate hike cycle and not fall behind the curve.

So today's reaction by the stock market is not unexpected by this individual participant, because I was only looking for a gap-fill bounce with no need to read more into it than that.  But the lack of wage growth is not a reason why the stock market should be going down. The jumpiness in yield spreads could be among them, however.